


Dinner

by narquoise



Series: Bingo Card prompt [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narquoise/pseuds/narquoise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sherlock has some very deep thoughts about Greek moussaka.</p><p>'Food' prompt off the Sherlolly Bingo Card by purpleyin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner

**Author's Note:**

> Some random fic I decided to write because this (http://purpleyin.tumblr.com/post/48957732727/download-the-card-here-or-see-this-post-for-html).  
> Will now attempt to make my own moussaka. /fliesaway

Dinner was the very last thing on his mind, but upon smelling something coming from the oven, something almost Pavlovian clicked in him. He approached it and bent over to check the oven window. Lo and behold, there it was—he could determine from the top layer that it was Greek moussaka. And by the fact that he could see sliced aubergine on the chopping board.

She had been thinking about making it for weeks now but had never quite gotten around to making it.

Often, dinner consisted of sandwiches, or soup, or a light salad, which was an agreeable enough dinner for the two of them as Sherlock didn’t eat as much as Molly liked him to. Her reason worried Sherlock more: with the amount of work recently put on her, food wasn't exactly a main priority. In a sense, it made her a sort of facsimile of him, which was something he was rather hoping she wouldn’t pick up at all.

She forgets to eat. There are occasions wherein he actually has to remind her himself. And she forgets to bathe the night before, and so gets through mornings hastily taking showers and fumbling with her hair dryer and brush and clothes and leaving the flat.

The cheese has been bubbling for some time. The smell of it rises up to his nose.

He’s tried it before, moussaka. The first time he tried it was on a trip to Ankara. The Turks had a diffrerent variation of it.

The dish was common to countries formerly in the territory of the Ottoman Empire. He thought on this subject one day; it would seem that food too could be affected by the founder effect. Their “phenotypes” and “genotypes” were different. Ingredients and methods of gathering, and which culture cooked.

He hadn’t expected the hunger pains to course through him. He had ignored himself for four days, neither bathing nor eating to get into the act of vagrant. The moment his stakeout was done, his contact brought him food out of pity at his appearance. And for a job well done. He lived on Montague then.

The second time was in Greece. He wasn’t necessarily on “official” business, but he had contacts to maintain relationships with. Friendships of utility, only an exchange of goods and information and nothing more.

By then, he lived in Baker Street. John was pestering him about his brother’s persistent calling for assistance with regards to “matters of national security that [his] brother needed legwork for.” (He also happened to squeeze in a “You owe me next week’s laundry,” but that was a matter easily forgotten. And not without consequence.)

He found that those calls, and the work with his contacts, took his mind off the looming thoughts of _Tom_  and how she laughed so easily when  _his_  name was mentioned in conversation [he eavesdropped]. The sound of laughter was pleasing, but link it to that name and face and it would ruin his entire day. Entire week. Work. Cause lack of concentration. Cause him to nearly contaminate evidence. Get him forced into PPE.

She talked about  _him_  so kindly. She could say nothing much about him.

It was a night much like this one. He ate it off of a bowl and sat on the windowsill of the small flat an acquaintance had offered to let him stay in for the two weeks he stayed in Thessaloniki. Ioannis and Petra had been very kind. He left them and their four-year-old daughter with much gratitude, granted a quiet and reserved sort of gratitude, which they understood as the best he could offer.

It was the little Maria that influenced him to move. She spoke to him in lively, rapid, childish Greek, taking him to watch the people in the street. She called him  _katsarós_  and played with his hair, putting the occasional ribbon in. At first, it had been a source of annoyance, but eventually, he ignored, and even warmed up to, it. It was made more bearable with thoughts (and not fantasies) of her running her hands through his hair at the end of the day until he fell asleep on her lap. It was made more unbearable with the fact that she probably did not think that much of him for him to merit such ministrations, and that only in Greece would it be administered by none other than a young girl more than thirty years his junior.

He must have those touches. He was determined to have those touches now.

The buzz from the oven shook him out of his thoughts, and he quickly got the oven mitts to take it out and set the pan on a cooling rack. His hands hovered lightly over the food, and he drew them back in mild surprise.

She was like that. Their first real touch had been just as surprising, and just as warm, and just as suddenly painful, and just as relaxing. She had called him by his first name, which wouldn’t have been as surprising had it not been for the fact that he had noticed the glint in her eyes and the smile on her face and the tone of her voice and the glee hidden behind a soft sheen all too peculiar to her as she wrapped her arms around him.

She told him that she loved him, and that shouldn’t have affected him as much as it did, but his eyes teared up and he was left speechless for approximately 10.67 seconds, which was much longer than the average response time needed for confirmation of this with his own. Confusion spread over her features and she looked cautious, even weary. He hadn’t expected to notice the minute changes in her facial expression, but then he understood. He had gone over the impression of her face so many times in his mind that he knew just how her muscles would pull up a certain way when she smiled, frowned, cried, relaxed, and only then did he return the sentiments when he understood just exactly how he felt.

He stepped closer to the bathroom to check whether she was still in the shower washing her hair, and quickly shuffled over to the tray, pulling out a fork from one of the drawers to sink into the dish. He took a bite, and the time in Thessaloniki came back to him again.

"Holmes!"

He jumped and accidentally shut the cutlery drawer with his hip.

"Fork out of dinner!"

It took five minutes for him to revisit two different time periods. Five minutes to finish her shower. Four to dry off and get dressed. Two to plate their food. Fifteen to eat it. Ten to do the washing up. Six seconds to walk to the sofa. And one particular instance in time to make him surrender to the feeling of her fingers combing through his hair in such distinctive ways so as to lull him to sleep.


End file.
